Room of Requirement
by nancystagerat
Summary: Bellatrix gives some dating "advice" to second-year Narcissa. One-shot.


"Where are you going, Cissy

"Where are you going, Cissy?"

Narcissa jumped at the velvety purr of her sister's voice, wincing inside.

_Bellatrix_.

The older girl sat curled in a huge armchair, barely visible in the shadows of its wings; Narcissa would never have noticed her if not for that voice and the burnished glow of the fire on her hair. She should've known Bella wouldn't be sleeping tonight, not when the Mark on her arm had been twingeing on and off all day. Narcissa was caught, no way around it. Bella would never let her live this down.

"Nowhere."

"I know you, dearie. You were reaching for the door." Bellatrix said, a sly smile curving across her mouth. "Tell me, who are you sneaking out to see? It better not be some Gryffindor, or so help me…"

Narcissa felt her face burning; the darkness in the common room had never been more welcome. It was bad enough she'd been caught; the last thing she needed was for her lobster cheeks to give her away, too. "I'm not going to see anyone! I'm not even _going_ anywhere! Where would I possibly go in the middle of the night, Bella? And why are you attacking me like this?"

"_Attacking_ you?" Bellatrix smiled a slow, viper's grin that didn't reach her eyes, folding feline limbs beneath her skirt. "Really, Cissy, if you're going to lie to me, at least be _entertaining, _if not convincing." She brushed a few strands of silky black hair from her eyes, taking her sweet time to interrogate her baby sister. "It's Lucius, isn't it?"

There was no point in lying anymore. Bellatrix was always spot on, and never failed to put everyone else at a loss to decipher how. Narcissa was no match for the lie-detecting powers of the seventh-year sister.

"He said there was something on the seventh floor he wanted to show me, some room or something, but only after the teachers stopped prowling around. I was going to meet him there."

Much to her surprise, instead of laughing and poking the cruel bit of fun Narcissa had steeled herself for, Bella's lip curled in something akin to disgust.

"Don't ever let me catch you sneaking off with that boy after hours," she snapped, her languid purr metamorphosed to a dangerous growl, "least of all cavorting up to the seventh floor."

Narcissa folded her arms across her chest, suddenly fraught with a nagging suspicion that she was about to be gypped. Rather than miss out on whatever it was Lucius had planned, she weighed her choices and opted to brave Bellatrix's temper. "But I catch you sneaking off with Rodolphus all the time! Nothing stops you, or Andy, either!"

"Where Rodolphus and I go certain nights is worlds away from what Lucius is planning to do with you, and even less of your business. You're _twelve_, for Merlin's sake! He's in Andy's year!" Narcissa felt a chill trace up and down her back at the look in her sister's eyes. Bella _loathed_ Lucius, always had, and probably always would. The boy had always been a bit too sneering and pompous for Bella, all bravado without the balls to back it up.

"He's a silky, oily slip of a boy, and not the sort the littlest Princess Black should be _publicly_ going anywhere with, let alone _sneaking_ anywhere." Now the sensible half of her brain Narcissa had buried was whining back at full force; maybe braving Bella's temper wasn't the best thing to do after all. "As for Andromeda, I don't know where she goes or what she does some nights, but I do know that she has slightly more common sense in her misguided little brain than you do!"

Despite the fear rising in her chest, the words in her throat won control of her tongue. "At least I'm not sneaking off with some _Gryffindor_ like Andy does, Bella! Andy goes out lots of nights with this kid or that one, and you never say anything to her! _I_ even caught her sneaking around with a _mudblood_ over the summer and _you_ never even —!"

"Because Andromeda is too backwards to begin with. It's not like I haven't tried, Cissy. You know as well as I that I don't need her bad taste reflecting on me, and I think I just _might_ be smart enough to realize that she needs some correcting."

The fear checked Narcissa's tongue and made color rise higher in her cheeks. Bella was a little too aggravated to cross any further, and Narcissa valued keeping her jugular inside her throat sufficiently enough to shut her mouth for the moment.

"No girl with any shred of self-respect would go to the seventh floor after hours with a boy," she said, punctuating her words with a toss of black hair over her shoulder. "Least of all one of _us_."

Narcissa couldn't help herself. "Why?"

Bella's eyes flashed. "Because that's the way it is."

"Tell me, Bella!"

"Gods, no! The last thing I need is you getting any ideas."

"But you _have_ to have been there yourself if you know so much about it!" A sneer twisted the pretty bow lips of the youngest Black. "Oh, that's right, Roddy's probably taken you _loads_ of times, if you're insinuating _that_—"

That was all it took for the older girl to snap. "That, _my dear_, would be calling me a filthy slut and the son of one of the most influential pureblood families a shameless pervert."

One look at the murder in Bellatrix's eyes and Narcissa's blood froze. "Bella – Bella, I didn't mean—"

"Of course you didn't. If you want this Malfoy boy that badly, get out. Now."

She couldn't move. "Bella, I'm sorry—"

"No, Cissy, you're not. You're afraid. You don't want me doing something to embarrass you. You don't want me to say anything to Lucius. Well, sweetheart, you offended the wrong girl at the wrong time." That familiar sharp smile cut back across Bellatrix's face and Narcissa whipped her head around, afraid of what Bella might be grinning past her at.

Rodolphus Lestrange padded on silent feet down the dormitory stairs, brushing past Narcissa without so much of a glance. His eyes were only for Bella. Narcissa watched, unabashed, as he wrapped himself around her sister and kissed her as if to take her in all at once. She shifted in the armchair, making room for him to fit beside her, still attached at the lips. Neither seemed to care that the second-year was staring; Narcissa was even inclined to think they'd forgotten about her until he bent to kiss her neck and Bellatrix smirked past him, cold eyes boring into Cissy's flaming cheeks.

"Either get going, Narcissa, or go to bed," Bella said, jerking her head slightly toward the damp stone door, and Narcissa watched the boy trace his fingers up her sister's left forearm, "Rodolphus and I have places to be."


End file.
